Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was already in a politically precarious position. The controversy surrounding his handling of the administration’s deadly boat strikes in international waters has sparked calls for his resignation, and even several congressional Republicans have publicly expressed their dissatisfaction with the former Fox News host’s management at the Pentagon.
And then things took a turn for the worse on Wednesday, when the Pentagon inspector general’s office released its findings in the investigation into the Signal chat scandal. As MS NOW reported, the results of the investigation made Hegseth look even worse.
According to a source who read the report, which was shared with the House and Senate Armed Services Committees, the acting Inspector General for the Department of Defense found Hegseth ‘violated policy by using a non-approved device,’ contradicting the secretary’s claims that he did nothing wrong.
The source, who was granted anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the report, said the report concluded Hegseth shared classified information, failed to preserve records and put military operations and servicemembers at risk when he communicated in the Signal chat with 19 people.
The MS NOW report went on to cite two sources who said the IG’s findings show Hegseth’s actions clearly put troops “at risk.”
By now, the basic elements of the “Signalgate” controversy are probably familiar: Top members of Donald Trump’s national security team participated in an unsecured group chat to discuss sensitive details of a military operation. They also accidentally included a journalist, The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, in their online conversation.
The final paragraph of Goldberg’s piece on the fiasco read, “All along, members of the Signal group were aware of the need for secrecy and operations security. In his text detailing aspects of the forthcoming attack on Houthi targets, Hegseth wrote to the group — which, at the time, included me — ‘We are currently clean on OPSEC.’” (“OPSEC” meaning “operations security.”)
In other words, the defense secretary was certain that he and his colleagues — while chatting on a free platform that has never been approved for chats about national security or classified intelligence — had locked everything down and created a secure channel of communication.
We now know that Team Trump was most certainly not “clean on OPSEC.”
What’s more, while there was some initial discussion of whether the chat included classified information, there’s no denying it included highly sensitive information about times and targets, much of which was put there by Hegseth himself.
“1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package),” Hegseth told his colleagues. “1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME) — also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s).” At one point, the defense secretary literally wrote, “THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP.”
This led to an investigation, which Hegseth apparently refused to cooperate with, despite his claim that he did nothing wrong. MS NOW’s report added that Hegseth refused an interview request and would not turn over his phone for the probe. As the public learned of the IG’s findings, Defense Department spokesman Sean Parnell said of the report, “The Inspector General review is a TOTAL exoneration of Secretary Hegseth.” The Pentagon chief himself added that the investigation was a “total exoneration.” The president has an unfortunate habit of using the word “exonerated” in ways that suggest he doesn’t know what the word means. Evidently, this confusion has spread to his Cabinet. This isn’t a close call: The manifestly unqualified Hegseth was already juggling several scandals. Now an investigation from his own department has concluded that he shared classified information, failed to preserve records and put military operations and American service members at risk. In a normal and healthy political environment, this would be a career killer. That Hegseth isn’t walking out of the Pentagon with his belongings in a cardboard box right now is itself an indictment of the administration and of members of Congress responsible for its oversight.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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